Saturday and Keepers...

Good Evening my friends.. 

Here we are another Saturday evening and once again I am posting.. 

I do hope you are having a good weekend.. 

This week I prepared for our Keepers of the Home meeting which we had today.. 

We had a roll of Christmas paper and a roll of brown parcel paper to make a garland.. 

A bit of twin and homespun rags and some sparkle.. 

We also made a table runner and some labels ... 

Here we used napkins and such..

I will show you more next post as I forgot to take pics of the labels and runners.. sorry.. 

I also took this Schnitz or Farmers Fruit Cake to have for our lunch.. 

It is an Ontario Mennonite recipe and uses dried apples.. 

I had a bag left over from last Fall and wanted to use them up.. 

It made 2 big cakes and is simply delicious.. 

Or I think so as I love fruit type cakes.. 

The flavour is very unique ... 

I hope to run my dehydrators this week getting a new supply of dried apples for the Winter.. 

Here are the girls learning a ribbon broach and ribbon roses from Carman.. 

We only had coffee, tea and Tim Hortons muffins for breakfast as we were going to have soup for lunch.. 

I love paper crafts as they are so relaxing to do.. 

A bit of glue and paper and such and voila you have it finished. smile.. 

We had a sweet visitor all the way from Manitoba today.. 

Melissa... 

She won one of the ribbon broaches ! 

So happy to have her company... 

Remember the soup base that we learned about a few meetings ago?  

Well, Carman went out very early this morning to her farmer's market and bought an organic chicken.. 

She took it home and cut it in two and brought a half plus her new cooker to our meeting.. 

The chicken was cooked in 20 minutes.. 

She adjusted the recipe from her Romanian way to Canadian busy ladies method.. grin...

She placed the chicken pieces, a whole onion, a few parsnip, half a bunch of celery, 3 carrots and water into her new pressure cooker which does 7 different chores (like rice cooker, canner and such) and cooked it away while we did crafts.. 

She bought this wonder pot from Costco...

Then later she added only a third of the soup base.. 

And a bit of her homemade tomato juice and several potatoes chopped up.. 

It simmered away while we crafted and then at lunch time it was ready.. 

This was served over polenta along with fresh rolls..  

So good.. 

We usually just have a breakfast together but this was a once a year craft day for Christmas.. 

Twas fun !

Our little devotional was on Psalms 91 and a challenge to read it everyday for 30 days.. We will learn to really appreciate that Christ is our refuge and dwelling place no matter what goes on in this crazy world we live in.. 

Psalm 91

1 Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High
    will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.[a]
2 I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress,
    my God, in whom I trust.”

3 Surely he will save you
    from the fowler’s snare
    and from the deadly pestilence.
4 He will cover you with his feathers,
    and under his wings you will find refuge;
    his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.
5 You will not fear the terror of night,
    nor the arrow that flies by day,
6 nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,
    nor the plague that destroys at midday.
7 A thousand may fall at your side,
    ten thousand at your right hand,
    but it will not come near you.
8 You will only observe with your eyes
    and see the punishment of the wicked.

9 If you say, “The Lord is my refuge,”
    and you make the Most High your dwelling,
10 no harm will overtake you,
    no disaster will come near your tent.
11 For he will command his angels concerning you
    to guard you in all your ways;
12 they will lift you up in their hands,
    so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
13 You will tread on the lion and the cobra;
    you will trample the great lion and the serpent.

14 “Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him;
    I will protect him,  for he acknowledges my name.
15 He will call on me, and I will answer him;
    I will be with him in trouble,
    I will deliver him and honor him.
16 With long life I will satisfy him
    and show him my salvation.”

 Thank you dear hearts for visiting and letting me know you dropped by.. 
I appreciate it.. 
Still busy trying to get things done around here.. 
We were to the cottage and Terry winterised it for the season but our cold room still needs done and so on and so on.. 
It is sort of discouraging when you know a lot of people are all trimmed and decorated for Christmas !! 

The only thing I have done in that direction is to start a new Pinterest Board with some ideas for this year.. 
I plan to go a new direction by just using fresh and simple decorations.. 
When the holidays are over all I will do is take it down and not have to pack it all away... 
I have been wanting to do experiment with this for a couple of years so we will see how it turns out.. 
Here is my pinterest link...

 https://www.pinterest.com/fayehenry/a-fresh-simple-christmas/

Let me know what you think?  I will use special keepsakes and ornaments, of course but mostly fresh greens and such.. 

Terry and Dustin are gathering me lots of greens, mosses, cones and rose hip branches, etc. and putting them on the deck.. I will work away every once in awhile on garlands, wreaths and whatever but keep them in the cold until a few weeks before Christmas.. They would dry out if I did them before that, eh? 

Anyway.. we shall see....

Tomorrow is the Lord's Day.. Have a blessed one.. 
Sending you hugs from Eastern Canada...

A Ramble and Roll...

Good Evening my dears.. 

Just writing another ramble and roll type of post.. 

We have been going hither and yon and although each week we say we are going to stay home and get a few things done we end up running the roads again.. smile.. 

Therefore, my posting has been a bit erratic.. 

Today we stayed home and have started off the week right.. grin.. 

The pics are a bit of this and a bit of that so I best explain as we go, eh?  

Up above is a batch of Whoopie Pies that I made a bit ago for our little fellowship that we have at church on Sunday mornings.. 

Do you ever bake these.. 

My sister-in-law gave me the recipe for them over 40 years ago and everyone still enjoys them.. 

We like them a bit moist but our son-in-law likes his cake like.. 

They are good regardless... eh? 

Terry and I have been spending at a couple of days a week at the old farm.. 

So happy that we can get in the lane and thus enjoy the old place this Winter.. 

I know I tell you this each time I post but we do so enjoy it there..

I almost always make a bit of no knead bread and put soup on the old wood stove.. 

Terry and Trevor are still enjoying going to the wood lot each week.. 

Either cutting a bit of wood or cleaning up the lot.. 

Whatever it is they certainly enjoy themselves.. smile.. 

We have such a mix of weather, really. 

We go from snow to rain and wind... 

We sometimes go for a drive while we are at the farm and this is another picture of Albert Co.. 

I think this was last week before we had the snow.. 

The wind has been wild the last several days.. 

Terry put a wind chime that I bought at the thrift store in the pine tree outside our bedroom window .. I love a wind chime, don't you? 

Today I was working on our livingroom.. 

Doing a bit of redecorating and cleaning and such.. 

I needed a little table for a lamp to sit by the spinning wheel and remembered that I had this one that belonged to Terry's Mom.. 

I tried to decide if I should paint it or not.. 

I didn't think he would want me to so I found my home made beeswax furniture wax.

As you can see it worked very well.. 

And smells so lovely as it is scented with lavender essential oil.. 

Here is the recipe again.. 

I did do a post on it awhile back.. 

Beeswax Furniture Polish..

Warm 250ml or 1 cup of jojoba oil or apricot kernel oil in a small pot.. 

You can use a mixture .. 

I used apricot plus grape seed as I read it has the same qualities.. 

Add 15 grams or 1 Tablespoon of dried herbs.. ( I used lavender and rosemary)

2 strips of lemon zest.

Place over low heat until small bubbles form on the edges.. 

Then take it off and leave setting overnight.. 

I actually let it sit for a week.. 

Strain the oil through cheesecloth into a heat proof bowl.. 

Place over a simmering pan of water and add 80g. (1 cup) of grated beeswax ..

Keep stirring until melted. 

Add at least 6 drops of essential oil.. 

I added part lavender and part rosemary and a lot more then 6 drops.. Just till it smelled my way.. 

Pour into a tin or heated glass jar..

This recipe is taken from the book

FROM THE GARDEN BY DEBORA ROBERTSON.. 

I think I will put this plant on it instead of a lamp, though.. 

Shonda gave me this as a wee slip and looked how well it has grown.. 

It is a Prayer Plant.. 

We had our Keepers meeting but I did not get around to doing a post about it.. 

We had a great time although there were not very many of us.. 

It was not great timing and everyone was busy.. 

Here is Carmen making a dish soap with lemons, vinegar and salt..

Home made Dish Washing Liquid.. 

Ingredients

• 3 lemons
• 14 oz water
• 4 oz white vinegar
• 1 cup salt

Directions

1. Cut the lemons, and remove all of the seeds.
2. Cut the lemons into smaller chunks and put into the blender.
3. Add water to blender, and blend on high until smooth.
4. Pour into a pot, add vinegar and salt, and stir.
5. Cook just below boiling for 10-15 minutes. It will be pretty liquidy until it cools completely, so don’t worry if you think it is too thin.
6. Allow to cool slightly, and store in glass containers. 

I am one of those people who loves suds in my dishwasher and I found that although this cleans excellently and smells wonderful that there were no suds.. 

So I just put in about a 1/4 of a cup of this and a squirt of lemon Dawn.. 

I get the great cleaning along with a bit of suds and still save money.. 

It really goes a long way.. 

I did a bit of research on google and found that this recipe is used for dishwashers also... 

Interesting... 

I made this recipe to go on bagels for breakfast and the girls loved it.. 

And dear Lindsay made us some delicious pancakes that we had with some Prosser Brook maple syrup.. smile.. 

Sorry, no picture but here is the recipe..

As was said I have been working on our living room trying to cosy it up a bit.. 

It is quite a large room of both living space and dining room so it needed some colour and such.. 

We finally finished the curtains to suit me today.. 

Terry had to make rods out of wood but now they are finished to suit me.. I will do a pic for you when I get it all finished.. 

I also made a centrepiece for the table.. 

Love these shades and am trying to incorporate them into the room.. 

Oh.. and I made another batch of hot pickled veggies just for me.. smile.. 

Terry doesn't like them but they are a great snack with hardly any calories.. 

Veronique (Dustin's girlfriend) found out she likes them too.. grin 

And finally, I am almost done but I did my Winter gardening.. 

Sprouts on the window sill.. 

please note my new teapot... 

Oh sprouts.. how I love thee... 

Terry doesn't like them either... Honestly... He doesn't know what he is missing.. grin.. 

Well dear hearts this is finally finished and I think I am now caught up pretty good anyway... 

Please forgive me my lack of blogging and commenting on your blogs although I do visit when I can.. 

Thank you so much for stopping by and leaving your sweet comments either here or on Face Book.. 

I look forward to hearing from you all and do try to answer your questions.. 

I am a happy grandma tonight as our dear grandson is back on Canadian soil and flying from Ottawa to Halifax... 

He had a great time in Africa on his Missions trip and had a wonderful unforgettable experience.. 

But I am glad he is back.

Welcome to the new followers also ... 

So glad to have you ... 

God bless you all... 

xo

Linked to...The Art of Homemaking Mondays..

and

Roses of Inspiration..

Keepers of the Home meeting for March..

Good Evening ladies.. 

Hope you all are enjoying lovely Spring weather ... 

Let's just say we are not.. smile.. 

Saturday morning turned out ok after the terrible storm we had.

Our attendance was down but I am sure the weather was responsible.. 

What a Winter/Spring we are having.. 

They are now calling it Sprinter... grin.. 

Anyway.. 

We started as usual with breakfast.. 

This was a new recipe we tried and it was very good.. 

Overnight Berry French Toast..

The link for the recipe is HERE..

We had some wonderful fellowship.. 

Stories were told.. smile.. 

The coffee and breakfast were tasty.. 

Then these two sweet girls taught us how to decorate some soaps.. 

It was a simple craft and so much fun.. 

They gave us several examples of ways to use the soaps for our gift pantries.. 

They brought several pages of Victorian graphics that we just cut out, wet in water and stuck on the soap.. 

Then taking the soap we dipped just the paper covered side into melted paraffin wax.. 

Taking a sharp knife you just scrape off some of the wax and it is finished.. 

The picture will last until the soap is all gone.. 

I loved this craft.. 

Look for sticker books and then copy them on your computer or just print some from the web.. 

Then these two ladies taught us to make some homemade hand sanitizer.. 

Each one took home a bottle.. 

Here is the recipe.. 

HAND SANITIZER RECIPE

1/2 cup of aloe Vera gel 

1 1/2 tsp. witch hazel

15 drops of tea tree essential oil..

5 drops of lavender essential oil or oil of your choice..S... 

some purified water to thin mix if desired if you would like to spray it.. 

Just whisk this all together and place in purse size bottles.. 

You can buy these at the dollar stores.. 

THANK YOU, LADIES.. 

Our lesson on this day was very simple.. 

The room we were focusing on was the bathroom.. 

So, we talked about how a simple act of a toilet overflowing can give us a moment to pause and take the time to slow down and not get all upset but to just do the chore in good spirits.. 

We can do this when we put God first in our day. 

He grants us the strength and purpose we need.. 

We want to remember that it is our family that counts and we as Mamas need to purposely show them our love and affection despite the upsets of our day.. 

Small things mean a lot even if we are going out straight.

So our goal this month is put God and our family first in our everyday lives.. 

Thank you again for your visits and comments.. 

If you live nearby we would love to have you join us later this month as we are redoing and making do... 

It is held in Salisbury, N. B. 

Just email me or leave a comment.. 

God bless.. 

Psalm 51:10

King James Version (KJV)

10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.